Prologue
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, a civil war rages.
“We should go,” Maria said. “The plans are compiled, and we don’t know who could have been listening.”
“Do you think Imperials would peep all the way out here?” Kyle asked, rising from a console.
Maria closed out of the last few glowing screens. She was middle-aged, still in a prime though aged with years of subversion. “I’m not talking about their tech; they know things they have no business to.”
“Rumors are rumors,” Kyle said, shaking his head. “You always bring that up. There’s no proof that a scanner can detect these Confederate channels, saying the Whites have that magic. My mum said the Force -”
“Shut up about that! How’d she get caught-up again? ‘Didn’t see it coming’, was it? Back before your stint with the Empire?” Maria didn’t usually get this venomous. Carrying data about the most dangerous weapon to the galaxy, one that a fleet would very likely die for, put her on edge. “The Empire fought with the Force in the Wars, whatever the history holos say.”
Kyle opened the door without a word, a hint of a frown being taken into the hall. He wished his mum hadn’t been brought up at all. “As you said, we have a long flight ahead of us. Tantive won’t wait long.”
“Ya.” Maria, having spent more than tenfold the time than Kyle opposing the Empire, knew how quickly appointments could fall apart. And how quickly a spy for the Whites could get word out to a communication probe. “The encryption took so long, it should have bought us a few hours. At least the Bothans automated the processes before they bugged-out.”
Kyle only shrugged. Time serving in the Stormtrooper Corp exposed him to much better technology than even the best Alliance command posts he’d seen; this backwater listening post being far worse. He’d seen reports on Bothans, too; easy enough to spot with the fur, but still-secret personal cloaking that beat even Imperial detection allowed them uncontested stealth within Imperial holdings - well, most of the time.
He wasn’t much for intuition, but he was uneasy - so was everyone else in the corridor which they passed. Something was different this time around. A harsh year with the Rebel Alliance saw round after round of furious flight from fort after fort followed by soul-crushing periods of boredom. Now, post weeks of waiting with secrets few trusted him to have, the presence of the schematics acted like a malicious talisman from Maria’s Force stories. The Bothan discovery and subsequent rout made the situation want for at least a bare minimum of neutral news, too.
But that wasn't something to be shared with this coconspirator.
Maria had earned her place with the Rebellion. She, a new land-trader, had seen the end of the Clone Wars only to have an Imperial task force ‘render’ the major cities of her world, one that had been on the wrong side of the galactic conflict. Salt-and-pepper close-cut hair, dark skin, and grey eyes, her withering stare did less damage than her veined hands - at least to the throats of a dozen troopers on her homeworld, tucked away in their barrack bunks. Had it been known that a whole hemisphere would be bombarded from space, six million lives may not have been worth a fist-full.
Seeing too many friends die had branded her as very no-nonsense. Maria’s oft preached belief that the enemy had access to the Force was the only unevidenced mindset Kyle thought her to have.
This asteroid post from the Clone Wars was too small, too poorly equipped with anything but the necessities, to sport a turbolift. Stopping at the cross-station ladder well, hand on a rung, Maria turned to Kyle. “Just watch it getting out of here - assurances that-”
She was cut off with a boom. Lights blanked-out to be replaced by red strobes and a pitiful electric wail.
The gravity went out too, saving Kyle from cracking his face into the wall.
“Slag it!” Kyle shouted. Gravity returned long enough for Kyle to barely get his feet before another shudder hit the station. Maria was already up the well, yelling down at him.
“Kyle! Get going now!” Maria’s face disappeared as Kyle raced up after her.
“Imperial forces have dropped out directly in our space. Proceed to evacuate,” echoed the loudspeakers. “Repeat, Imperial f-”
Kyle cursed as he chipped a tooth when another quake hit the small asteroid. Launching himself down the weightless hall, he barely dodged Warren, the atmosphere quality tech, floating by with his head at a wrong angle.
Loosened paneling vibrated in rhythm with the thumping surface guns; guns too small for any military-grade shielding. Dust mixed with the escaping smoke of blown electrical routing.
“Maria!” Kyle couldn’t find the evacuation strip in the flickered red light. Looking for the right passageway, he slowed his momentum along protruding handholds.
Two station personnel careened into the hall at the far end. They were mouthing something Kyle couldn’t make out over the whine of alarms. What he did hear was screaming - of man or metal, was a difference without distinction - as a fireball ripped the far corridor asunder, vaporizing the other evacuees before emergency seals slammed together between him and the flames.
Stunned, a grip along Kyle’s ankle wrenched him through a small accessway just as the locks further on began hissing atmosphere.
“Idiot!” Maria threw Kyle down the hole. “Go go go!”
They pawed over rungs and floating debris into a sub-corridor. Flying by, Maria pulled through their ship’s docking port, heading straight to the cockpit. Kyle closed the hatch, strapping in next to Maria.
Keying in the cold-start sequence, their ship vented propulsion directly onto the asteroid’s surface, pulling charging cables in their wake. Charging out of the hidden rock cleft, hunks of planet-forming stuff rolled in front of them, rushed past them. A boom rocked the ship’s shields which squealed in protest.
“Readings fore and aft - I think they’re TIEs. Eighty-percent on the Hyperdrive.” Maria banked through the still expanding cloud of detritus of the Alliance station.
Through the cockpit window, a green streak annihilated an asteroid dead ahead. As Maria twisted to avoid the majority of rocklets, Kyle punched-in the final coordinates for the Hyperdrive system. Chancing a glance, he switched to the rear camera. A new layer of cold sweat beaded on his forehead.
Glowing bone-white, the colossal Star Destroyer of the Empire was as keen as a dagger against the blackness of space, smaller escort craft hugging its flanks like flies on a carcass. Even at their distance, Kyle could make out the Star Destroyer’s rows and rows of mounded turrets that could burn away a planet’s crust in mere hours. Green sparks twinkled over its surface.
“Incoming!” Kyle furiously typed in the counter-frequencies for high-energy deflection. He knew it wouldn’t be enough to handle a direct impact, but he figured there was very little else that could be done.
An eye-searing explosion of green light filled the cabin. The ship, tossed through space like a toy, narrowly missed skyscraper-sized rocks. Every warning alarm the ship possessed deafened the screams of the engines attempting to straighten-out.
Maria, gasping through tearing eyes, righted the craft. “One hundred-percent,” she wheezed, slapping the Hyperdrive engage switch.
As the universe began to vanish into a tunnel of light, Kyle noticed the blood filling the cockpit.
Author's note: I've been quite busy at work, but nothing is ready to be shared code-wise. At home, there's been more of a creative expression - one part, being a rewriting of Star Wars Episode IV's original screenplay and novelizing that. This is a part of that effort needing to get out before too many people see Rogue One! (Star Wars and all fictional content relating to that property is not owned by me.)
